Former Disney kids programming exec Lou Fazio joins GSN, the Network for Games in the newly-created position of vp of scheduling and acquisitions, effective Aug. 2, 2004. Fazio's responsibilities for the Sony Pictures Entertainment and Liberty Media owned cable network will include overseeing program scheduling and acquisitions for the 55 million home network.
Reporting to Ian Valentine, svp of programming, Fazio will be located in the company's Santa Monica headquarters. He is responsible for all planning aspects including acquired programming evaluations, analysis and budget planning, as well as programming schedules. The position was created to allow one person to focus on the complexities of scheduling and acquiring programs to maximize audiences in all dayparts.
"Lou will bring his years of scheduling and acquisitions experience to bear on our on-going repositioning of GSN," said Valentine. "GSN has such a great opportunity given the audience's clear love of games and various game programming that we need to maximize our scheduling and acquisitions smarts. Lou will do that for us."
Fazio served as exec director of programming and acquisitions for Toon Disney and ABC Kids since August 2001, overseeing all scheduling and planning aspects of Toon Disney and the Saturday morning children's block on ABC. He also supervised several departments including traffic and media planning and he acted as the liaison with all key divisions within the cable group, broadcast network and other Disney company sectors. He joined ABC Cable Networks group as director of program planning in March 2000 and was promoted to exec director.
Prior to working at Disney-ABC, Fazio served as director of acquisitions for the USA Network after serving senior manager of program scheduling at the Sci Fi Channel. He began his career in the TV industry as an assistant at the USA Network in October 1987 and quickly rose to program supervisor before joining Sci Fi.
GSN, the network for games, is the only U.S. television network dedicated to game-related programming and interactive game playing. The network features game shows, reality series, documentaries, videogame programs and casino games. As the industry leader in interactivity, GSN features 84 hours per week of interactive programming, which allows viewers a chance to win prizes by playing along with GSN's televised games via GSN.com. Reaching 55 million Nielsen homes, GSN is distributed in the U.S. through all major cable systems and satellite providers.
